'Terrorist Beefcake'

This man posing is a student and his girlfriend later confessed to me an

escaped terrorist convict from a nearby prison whom she and two others

(not the woman taking the photo) helped escape and harbor. Here, he

poses for a friend of a group that once included me, clueless as to this

man's 'escaped convict' status. (She told me he later turned himself in

after he was discovered in the area and a manhunt ensued). Your

ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you

rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy (the photo

and the story, which I believe to be true but comes from his girlfriend at

the time, a now highly respected and famous dance photographer. john

His girlfriend, Merit Engelke, then a student photographer and sometimes photography instructor and two other women I knew and traveled with sometimes, Merit told me, sprung Thomas H. from prison and harbored Thomas (above) while went to University in Giessen, Germany quite near the prison where she told me he had been housed.

I knew Thomas from often sharing quarters as a visitor of Merit and one of the other women, Ursula and also traveling with the third woman.

The three women had been teaching 'art' to prisoner/convicts, and developed they an affinity for this man, decided he did not belong behind bars and pledged to help him.  He had been allowed to go 'home' to his parents for leave and apparently when he left for 'leave' to his parents (I am told) arrangements were made by these three for him to be harbored and never return to his prison life.  I knew him during his period of freedom, while he was a university student, clueless about his fugitive status.

Years passed and this man attended university, even interviewed on behalf of the university student newspaper, the local chief of police, as he told me, and once prepared a case on behalf of his landlord to argue before Germany's highest court (a case involving gravestone marks).

Highly charismatic and very intelligent, Thomas recounted tales of a wild anarchistic, youth, full of misadventures and also tales of 'friends' right out of novels, some of whom I later surmised he met in prison - like the man who kept a live crocodile in his bathtub, soccer hooligans (friends of his) and their destructive but interesting antics numerous other stories including one of whom I met (photo taken near his house).

I was unaware the 'soccer hooligan' at the time had been convicted of any crime,  but have been told so and believe it.

Only after I was informed Thomas H. had surrendered to German polizei after a major manhunt was triggered did I learn that polizei had even suspected he was sleeping in a bed I often slept in, and during that manhunt at night one night polizei stood over that bed with submachine guns (sten guns), after coming to his girlfriend's residence in their search for him. A neighbor I knew independently confirmed the search.

Luckily, although I often slept in that particular bed police stood over with their sten guns while I was in Germany, (which was frequently), I was not there at the time and kept from a very rude awakening.

I have been told all the above is true by his girlfriend, and some of the above I know from VAST personal experience, and personal knowledge of Thomas, who did not give me any real clue that he was an escaped convict.

(In Germany, unlike the US, prisoners are allowed 'leave' to go visit families, and he took advantage of that).

Merit told me she would escape prosecution because she would claim 'fiancée' status and being a 'fiancée' would give her immunity from prosecution.  She paid for his defense, she told me, at enormous cost.

Last I heard, he was reunited with her, and frankly, the man lived a pretty lawful and productive life while 'on the lam' and was apparently rehabilitated.  If I had any say, he would have been pardoned at some future time on account of his rehabilitation.

*********

Related Story

See also the story and photo this portfolio of Leonard Fristoe,, an escaped convict and double murderer, train robber, who spent 47 years 'on the lam' after escaping from the Nevada State Penitentiary on the day he was returned to that penitentiary, photo taken in 1969 or 1970.

In that photo Fristoe is shown beneath a guard tower, helped by a guard and leaning on his cane.

john

John (Crosley)

The story is great, you would never relate that image or the people invovled in it to a story like that, this image really says something towards the mystery of a still image.

They were in their mid-late '20s,I in my early '40s, and I had picked up striking hitchhiker Ursula on the Danish-German border, or, rather, she had picked me up.

She explained later she never would have stopped my car and knocked on my window to ask for a ride  had she known an American was inside, but my rental car had a Swiss license plate as I had rented in Zurich.

I was only to take her to a vacation rental cabin friends had invited her to spend a time with that summer on the Danish beach, and drop her off.  She had a letter inviting her and describing where the house was with the rural beach address in Denmark.

We drove there.

We got there, on a deserted stretch of coastal highway, in late afternoon.

No one was there.

She re-read the letter, and realized she had misread the month.  Ursula, cute, really cute, actually as cute a person as I could have ever wished to know, was left with no way out except me.

I offered her a ride back to the German border . . . . or, I told her, we could proceed where I was heading . . . . to Copenhagen, but we'd have to share a room.

I'd be a gentleman.

I was in my '40s, and then heavily bearded.

The whole story sounded like it was from some trashy, sexy novel, except I promised to be a gentleman and after some reminding, was a gentleman for all the subsequent years I knew Ursula.

We toured Denmark, met her beautiful friend and that friend's lover in Copenhagen, then toured Germany together for almost a month (the first of several such trips), eventually spending time at her aunt's and father's house (her mother had died of cancer when she was very young).

She delighted in my company, and I kept my word, though I was very attracted to her. 

We enjoyed each other's company tremendously, and she taught me much about German culture. 

She was a student, and eventually we ended up sleeping in her single bed together in her dormitory (and I not touching her -- I am a single woman man who had an American girlfriend and was  true to my girlfriend).

She later made two trips to the USA together, and I made many trips to Germany to see Uschi.  We were fast friends and soon she introduced me to all her friends as well.  I became well known among young female students in that part of Hessen, Germany. 

I even was friends with her then boyfriend, a military officer at the German equivalent of West Point in Hamburg.  I traveled on frequent flyer miles and sometimes was given airline passes by a friend.

I visited about once a month.   I often stayed with her friend, Merit (boyfriend pictured above).

Through my friend Uschi, I met Merit her close friend, the photographer, shown in my well-known photo teaching class on nude photography. 

This man above was Merit's boyfriend.  Later, when he 'turned himself in' after a manhunt, Merit told authorities (she explained to me over dinner in a castle restaurant as she recounted the entire affair), she had claimed he was her fiancé and she his fiancée.  

We did not see each other after that . . . . I knew facts that might have been harmful to the eventual freedom and pardon (if what Merit told me about his being an escaped prisoner were true) to his being eventually punished less, pardoned, or having his sentenced commuted.

I became a big legal liability best kept away from German courts.

John? 

John who? 

An American? 

Who?

Is what I imagine her attorney and Thomas's attorney told them.

'Get rid of John -- don't let him come around', and that was the end of that.

I lost all my young German friends, including Andrea, above, taking the photo, even, a worker for the German auto club.

And frankly I was more than upset at the circumstances.

I had often shared a bed (without sex or any intimacy) that usually was Thomas's (above) when I visited, with Merit, and the same bed over which the polizei, -- she recounted -- stood over with their sten (submachine) guns, when they came on their manhunt for Thomas. 

On many occasions I had slept in that bed, and easily might have awakened only to find myself surrounded by the anti-terrorist polizei with their sten guns.  Only the chance of good timing meant I was not there, as I was there a LOT. 

It was my second home, there on a house beside a tranquil pond in Giessen, Germany.

And when I was staying there, Thomas went to his own apartment where he kept two cats, and worked for a maker of tombstones while he also studied.

He couldn't drive because he had no ID -- a fact that I wondered about, but was never explained to my satisfaction.  He had 'lost' it, I was told, and I didn't inquire further.

Ursula eventually left her military officer boyfriend (who got along well with me) and fell in with a former high school student friend who was building lighter than air airships who I think felt greatly threatened by my presence, and I think for Ursula it was a matter of 'him or me'.

And she wanted to marry the young man, which I think she did.

And that is the story of Merit, Uschi (Ursula), Thomas, and a third woman, whose name I don't recall this moment, but who came to Hawaii with Merit and me and who was a standout European style political cartoonist -- aha, Heike was her name, very beautiful with a husband, who spoke no English--the trio of women who sprung Thomas from prison after teaching him 'art' in prison.

Merit is a very famous and highly skilled photographer who last I saw had a wonderful web site with beautiful 'art' photos of dance, and photographed Germany's finest dancers and choreographers including world famous Pina Bausch and her dancers.

Merit insisted my photos be placed in my first and only (group) exhibit -- early photos of mine in a Wetzler, Germany  (I think it was Wetzlar) hospital exhibition, home of Leica.  And if memory fails me and it was not Wetzlr, then it was the city next door, either Grosser Linden or Kleiner Linden.

I was sorry for this whole affair -- I lost some good friends over it all -- and with it a wonderful part of my life.

All these young women also traveled on my tickets to America and met my then girlfriend, who was many decades older -- even much older than me --  and who never believed I was chaste with them all as I had been.

(and which maybe now I regret).

But then my word's been my bond with the fair sex.

john

John (Crosley)

What a picture, what a story!!!

May we expect the memoirs soon (not joking) - I think that you have a lot to say and show, not only on PN.

All the best!!!

How many escaped cons have you lived with and counted as friends and companions (unknowingly of course)?

And overall how many have you met who've been out of prison for 47 years then recaptured after a double murder during a wild west train robbery (me, one, Leonard Fristoe, whose recapture set a world record for recapture after being 'on the lam').

I've lived an interesting life with good, interesting experiences.

If I were a famous poet, politician, or even a semi-famous reality star, those memoirs would fly off the shelves, but I'm just John the camera guy with a bunch of oddball but interesting stories.

The question would be where to start. 

I could write about just my trip to Viet Nam steering a civilian ship loaded with 16,000 tons of mortars, breaking down in mid-Pacific to a dead stop in 30 foot seas while three different typhoons threatened, then on arrival in Viet Nam, jumping ship with cameras to document war, and make it all into a screenplay. 

Or write about my days shooting campus demonstrations freelance -- the end of my student days at Columbia University's Columbia College when student demonstrators took over and the eventual police sweep of the campus with flying billy clubs, and it'd all be most interesting, but I'm not a trained novelist -- though I am a trained writer.

I probably just need a good editor who says 'this will be interesting -- this period -- and the editor can find my writing a market -- if I just focus and write my experiences for a given period, as the experiences are legion, and I know how to make many things interesting, as I've lead a most interesting life. 

No cubicles for me.

Frankly my early life would make a good book and maybe even a screen play, but possibly not enough conflict . . . . and it's conflict and conflict resolution which drives screenplays, I've found out.

Plus, frankly I'm terrible with dialog.  I can write and write well, but writing dialog seems a mystery with me.  I'm good at remembering all but the spoken word and poor at inventing it.

Thanks for a helpful and encouraging remark -- I wasn't sure anybody would read all the above.

I still chill at the very real possibility of one day now long ago having been awakened facing German anti-terrorist police on a manhunt armed with submachine guns pointed at a blurry-eyed me in a foggy sleep-induced stupor, thinking that the sleeping me was really Thomas the escaped convict, and ready to fire at the slightest 'wrong move'.

It could have happened so easily.

Best to you.

john

John (Crosley)